1. Technical Field
This invention relates to a bicycle seat. More particularly, the invention relates to a bicycle seat, which comfortably supports a bicycle rider.
2. Description of the Related Art
The basic design of a bicycle seat has not changed significantly over the years. The shape of modern bicycle seats has a generally horizontal profile with a narrow front-end section (the nose or horn) and a wider, flared tail section with a concave intermediate section for thigh clearance.
The seats include a pliable, semi-rigid molded plastic, or nylon shell, over which conforming padding material is placed, and finally a leather, plastic, or vinyl cover is fitted. The use of new materials in modern seats has resulted in a lighter, more durable and more appealing seat than those of even twenty years ago, but the seat contours remain substantially the same.
The seat of a bicycle is required to perform a number of functions for the rider. It must support the rider comfortably for rides of long duration, it must position the rider for maximum efficiency in pedaling the bicycle, and it must aid the rider in controlling and stabilizing the bicycle. Various seat configurations have been devised to attempt to meet these objectives simultaneously. Because a rider may assume different positions with respect to the pedals of the bicycle in order to achieve maximum power for different conditions, e.g., uphill versus level riding, it is desired that as the rider moves his body for optimal positioning, the seat should remain in contact with the rider to assure constant control.
Furthermore, it has being known to bicycle riders that the conventional bicycle seat can cause chafing, blistering, bruising, and possibly injury to the rider.
The design of the bicycle seat does not always provide a sufficient degree of comfort. The primary cause of discomfort is the pressure exerted on sensitive areas of the body (i.e. the sacral, coccal, ischial, and perineal/genital regions) when the weight of the rider rests on a traditional bicycle seat.
There have been various attempts in the prior art to design bicycle seats that provide greater comfort and hygienic safety.
In order to provide greater comfort to the rider, the prior art teaches pre-forming concave regions into the horizontal seat surface corresponding to the pelvic bone and perineum regions of the rider. The purpose is to reduce compression on the pudendal arteries and nerves while not interfering with movement of the rider's legs in the pedaling motion.
Another way to add conform to a bicycle seat is by adding a cushioning material to the seat surface. A cloth cover or like material is selectively stuffed with a flexible and resisting material to form soft cushion lobes in strategically placed ridges to support the pelvic bones of the rider. The recent trend in seat design is to find the right amount of padding necessary to provide adequate comfort to the rider, while still conforming to the seat shell. Too little padding conforms to the semi-anatomic shape of the seat nicely, but padding (especially foam) gives out at the point of most pressure and therefore bottoms out at the most painful areas directly beneath the pelvic bones. To address the point pressure problem inherent with foam-padded seats, manufacturers have introduced a viscoelastic polymer (VEP) padding to replace the foam padding on today's state of the art seats. These types of seats employ a gel like polymer to displace point loads under the ischial tuberosities. The gel like padding creates pressure displacement by immersing the buttocks area in a semi-liquid padding and spread out the point load pressure upon the ischial tuberosities. Because the gel like padding is a moveable fluid it still cannot firmly grip the pelvis; thus, undue movement of the pelvis occurs during a pedaling motion. This excessive movement or grinding of the pelvic areas can cause bruising, groin pain, numbness, urethritis, neuritis, seat sores, and chafing.
These problems are aggravated by the friction and pressure that is caused to be exerted on the blood vessels and nerves along the inner and underside of the rider's pelvic region. The front-end section (nose) of the seat fits directly against the pelvic structures. This results in occlusion of arteries and veins supplying blood flow to the penis, as well as, compression of local nerves as they are sandwiched between the nose of the bicycle seat and the bony structures of the anterior pelvis. The resultant outcome is a numbing effect or paresthesia, as reported by many cyclists that can result in sustained paresthesia of the groin and penis, delayed or immediate impotence, and perhaps even an elevated prostate specific antigen.
In addition, recent studies have linked perineal pressure caused by traditional bicycle seats to urinary tract and yeast infections. In female riders, the arch of the pubic symphysis is shallow. Sitting on traditional bicycle seats can compress tender genital tissues against the seat causing irritation to the genitals.
In male riders, the crotch area of the body contains nerves and pudendal arteries leading to the penis. These arteries carry blood flow that enables erection. Sitting on traditional bicycle seat can increase the pressure in the pudendal arteries causing a decrease in blood flow. This decrease in blood flow may cause numbness potentially leading to impotency in certain male bicycle riders.
Therefore, it is desirable to have a seat with a construction that is designed to eliminate these problems. In order to overcome these problems, the prior art provides the seat with a groove at the nose portion of the bicycle seat, which results in a right side nose portion separated by a gap from the left side nose portion. The opening reduces the downward pressure exerted on the genital area by the rider's weight.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,193,309 entitled “Bicycle Seat” to Gootter, et al.” is an example of this approach. A disadvantage of this design is that in order to reduce the downward pressure exerted on the genital area, the Gootter reference forms a deep opening on the seat to receive the privates of the rider. However, such exaggerated deep opening become excruciatingly uncomfortable, especially during vigorous pedaling, since they require the rider to carefully align his or her privates with the deep opening. This becomes increasingly difficult when the rider must repetitively “get out of” the seat in order to stretch his or her legs or to move his position frequently to use different muscles to accommodate continuously changing terrain.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for an improved bicycle seat that is specially contoured to fully support the coccyx, sacrum, and ischium bones, while providing a relieved area for the perineum/genital regions. This includes the support of the corresponding tissues and musculature surrounding these aforementioned pelvic areas.
In addition, there is also a need for a seat that would facilitate a bicycle rider's assuming several differing positions on the seat while avoiding the creation of undesirable pressure on the rider's perineum.
Furthermore, there is also a need for a seat that conformingly fits a rider's pelvis and buttocks by evenly distributing the point loads between the bony projections of the rider's pelvic region and the seat.